Hammerhead
Hammerhead with Railgun]] The 'Hammerhead '''gunship is the anti-gravity main battle tank of the Tau Empire. It was first encountered by the Imperium during the Damocles Gulf Crusade. Construction Hammerhead Gunship with Ion Cannon]] The overall design of the Hammerhead is based off the chassis for the Devilfish APC. Most of the space within the tank is taken up by capacitors for its weapon systems, additional ammunition, and non-combat systems such as climate control and communications. As such, it cannot carry troops. The Hammerhead does have three crew members, which include the pilot, the secondary pilot who controls the many sensors, communications and navigational secondary systems, and the commander who controls the main turreted gun system. Override systems are also in place inside the Hammerhead to allow any crew member to take over another's role in case of casualties.The Hammerhead Gunship also houses most of its extra equipment and sensors in the front sensor array under the nosecone. Combat Role The Hammerhead is an extremely efficient main battle tank design. It has a well-earned reputation as a tank killer when it is armed with a Railgun. However, it can be equipped for a variety of roles, as seen below in the Weapon Variants section. During the Damocles Gulf Crusade, many Imperial tank crews quickly learned the hard way how deadly a Hammerhead can be. Armament Hammerhead gunships can be equipped with any of the following equipment: *Turret mounted primary weapon system, as explained in the weapon variants section below. (Standard) *Hull mounted secondary weapon system as explained in the weapon variants section below. (Standard) *Computer-aided Targeting Array which aids the gunners' aim in firing upon enemy targets. (Standard) *Landing Gear to allow the vehicle to land on the ground if needed. (Standard) *Blacksun Filter which greatly extends the distance that can be seen in darkness. *Decoy Launchers which are mounted near the engines and are capable of firing clouds of reflective strips to protect the tank's thruster arrays. *Disruption Pods which display distorting holographic images in the visual and magnetic spectra to make the vehicle harder to target. *Flechette Dischargers which line the hull and fire high-velocity flechettes at infantry which try to assault the vehicle. *Multi Tracker which are advanced stabilisers that allow the vehicle to fire while moving. *Sensor Spines which feed data to an advanced ground-following flight control system which allows the vehicle to avoid hazardous terrain. *Target Lock which automatically identifies potential targets and plots fire plans accordingly. This grants the gunners more choice in targets to engage. The Hammerhead can mounted with a variety of primary and secondary weapon systems. Primary weapon systems can include: *The Railgun which is a linear accelerator that fires a projectile at hyper-velocity speeds. It is primarily used to attack heavily armoured vehicles at long range. However, the Hammerhead variant of the railgun can also fire a submunition round. This consists of a sophisticated bundle of smaller projectiles that provide suppresive area fire against infantry. *The Ion Cannon which fires a stream of high energy particles acclerated by an electromagnetic field. These magnetic particles react explosively with a target on an atomic level. They are mainly used for taking out light tanks and well-armoured infantry such as Space Marines. *Dual Missile Pods which fire a barrage of the same missiles used in Battlesuit-mounted Missile Pods. They serve a similar role to the Ion Cannon, but sacrifices effectiveness against armoured infantry for a chance to hit more at a time. *Twin-linked Plasma Cannons which are more powerful versions of the Battlesuit-mounted Plasma Rifles. They are primarily used to take down light tanks and heavy infantry. *Twin-linked Fusion Cannons which are a larger version of the Battlesuit-mounted Fusion Blaster. It fires a blast of Melta energy used to melt through vehicles or heavy infantry. Both the Plasma Cannon and Fusion Cannon variants of the Hammerhead Gunship were first encountered during the Taros Campaign, where it is believed to first field-tested. *Twin-linked long-barrelled Burst Cannons which are similar to the Battlesuit-mounted Burst Cannons. However, the long-barrelled version is more powerful and has double the range. It is excellent for mowing down infantry. Secondary Weapons are mounted in the front recesses of the tank and and are primarily deployed as anti-infantry weapons. They can include: *Two Burst Cannons that are exactly the same as the Battlesuit-mounted version. *Two Gun Drones which ride with the vehicle, and can disengage to move off by themselves. *A Smart Missile System which fire a swarm of self-guided missiles each with a drone intelligence to hunt down targets that could not normally be seen or targeted. Hammerhead gunships can also have up to two Seeker Missiles which are fired and guided by Marker Lights. Sources *''Codex: Tau (3rd Edition) *''Codex: Tau Empire'' (4th Edition) *''Imperial Armour Volume Three -- The Taros Campaign'' Gallery Hhburst.jpg|Hammerhead Gunship armed with long-barrelled Burst Cannons Hhfusion.jpg|Hammerhead Gunship armed with Twin-linked Fusion Cannons Hhmiss.jpg|Hammerhead Gunship with Dual Missile Pods Hhplasma.jpg|Hammer Gunship armed with Twin-linked Plasma Cannons Category:H Category:Tau Tanks Category:Tau Vehicles Category:Tau Empire Category:Vehicles Category:Tanks